BOULDER, Colo.—Residents will be required to chop down more than 200 black walnut trees at their own cost in the next four months because of a beetle infestation, city officials said.

Black walnut trees along the Front Range are succumbing to the walnut twig beetle/canker complex, a rapidly spreading disease, said Ellie Bussi-Sottile, a city forester for the Parks and Recreation Department.

An estimated $1 million worth of trees are infested with beetles, officials said.

So far, city crews have cut down 22 trees on public land that were identified as infected, leaving about 228 infected trees on private property. The city was notifying homeowners with those trees that they have until Feb. 1 to remove and properly dispose of them.

Between 2005 and 2007, the Boulder Department of Urban Forestry spent $13,983 to remove 52 affected black walnut trees on public property.

Officials expected to spend about $4,500 this fall on pesticide to protect healthy trees in city parks and $3,500 in 2008 for soil injections for the healthy trees in the public street rights of way.

Today, one out of every three men imprisoned in Colorado -- and four out of every five women inmates -- say they have some type of moderate to critical mental health need, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections. The number of inmates with mental health needs in Colorado's prisons has steadily risen in the past two decades.

Maybe you've got plans to camp this weekend (just watch out for the mud and, er, snow up there), go for a hike or maybe you just want to lounge by the pool and kick it. Unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn't always necessarily cooperate.